Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 3.djvu/141

130 called themselves the leaders of the earth. I never found it until now; and now—how little it knows itself as great!" Without a word he loosed her from his arms, as though by that abstinence from any utterance or caress of passion to show that no mere passion goaded him to the forgiveness which a higher and purer tenderness bestowed, and would so bestow through the uttermost ordeal, and up to the last hour. Silently he led the horses from the place, their hoofs noiselessly sinking in the rank deep grass, drew the girths closer, and made the few preparations that were needed for their night-ride to the sea.

His foe was left in peace; it was a heavier surrender to her than any that had ever been made, many and wide and weighty though they were, the sacrifices that she had wooed, or commanded from those who had obeyed no law like the bidding of her lips. His heart was sick within him. The old religión of revenge, which had been sacred to his forefathers in the age when murderers were proven by bier-right, and the flaming cross of war was borne alight over moor and mountain, was in many a moment his religion still; it was "wild justice" in his eyes, and a justice best meted out from foe to foe